Family and Friends (20 page)

The one thing Betty has never been able to recapture is that sense of effortless superiority that she possessed at the age of sixteen. Where once she had only to display herself against the dreamy passivity of her sister Mimi, she is now surrounded by women of her own type, all of them, according to Betty, ‘lacking in humanity’. For this reason her thoughts sometimes go back to Mimi, especially when she receives the really surprising news of her sister’s marriage. Betty has no clear memory of Lautner, to whom she never paid any attention, but she is quite glad that Mimi did not marry Frank, with whom she has completely lost touch, not having bothered to inform him that she was leaving Paris. Mimi married!
That only leaves Alfred, with whom Betty has never been on good terms. She must look for a lovely wedding present from Max and herself. She really must make time to do this, perhaps tomorrow. But when the wedding photographs arrive and she sees how astonishingly prosperous Mimi looks in her white dress and with all those flowers, Betty turns thoughtful. She reflects that Mimi seems to be doing very well for herself. She then remembers that her family made no contribution towards the cost of her own wedding, which in fact cost absolutely nothing, and from the pile of discarded dresses which she had put on one side for the maid, she retrieves an orange chiffon evening gown and a short brocade jacket, parcels them up, and sends them off with a card in her extravagant hand: ‘Love and kisses, Betty’. After all, the dress, when Max bought it for her, had been very expensive, and she has only worn it two or three times.

The more Betty thinks about it, the more this wedding inflames her with a sense of injustice. She particularly dislikes the way Max pores keenly over the photographs, and, pointing with his long forefinger, demands, ‘And this one? Who is this? Whose mistress is this Dolly? She is very fine, but the other one, the little one, is more
sympathique.’
Betty snatches the photograph from him. ‘Nettie?’ she asks doubtfully. ‘Well, she was pretty as a child, but I don’t think she’s very remarkable now. And that awful hat.’ She continues to study the photographs, in odd moments, as does Max. Quite frequently, each will come upon the other, looking at this family group. Max seems fascinated by the array of handsome women, by the supporting cast of good-natured men. It is like a dream of home to him. Betty merely notices, with some annoyance, how everyone seems to have grown up, grown into a state of possession, while she has been absent, in this rented house, beside a chemically coloured pool,
on someone else’s land, in a distant country. And they all look so rich! How could her Mama not have sent her the money to attend this wedding, where she could have made a spectacular entrance and stunned everyone with her transatlantic sophistication? She forgets that she has not yet replied to the letter informing her of Mimi’s forthcoming marriage, a letter to which Sofka has added, in her angular but now shaky handwriting, ‘We should so love to see you, my darling.’ Ignoring this, Betty considers it outrageous that Alfred, with all his money, should not have sent two first-class tickets and arranged a welcome. The prodigal returns! Betty forgets that she has enough money, or rather enough of Max’s money, to arrange her own passage home, that she could, on receipt of Mimi’s letter, on an impulse, have bought an airline ticket and gone home to embrace her mother. But that is not the way in which Betty thinks it should have been arranged. Her family should have petitioned her, begged her, postponed the wedding until she should have imparted her plans, waited, with mounting anxiety, to see whether or not she would be able to attend. And the least they could have done would be to have invited Max, whom they have never met. This is Alfred’s doing, of course. Alfred was always down on her.

Mama is getting old, thinks Betty, with a tiny thrill of fear. And when she is no longer there, whose favourite will I be?

Suddenly the sun in this place looks garish and the scenery insipid. Max’s images on the television screen seem to reflect a denser reality than that enjoyed by Betty in her high-heeled sandals and her lounging pyjamas. Her mind slips gratefully into those dark, cool, bluish streets, those gas-lit alleys, that provincial café, that park at midnight with its dripping trees where the man on the run waits for the woman who has sworn that she will go with
him. Betty watches, achingly, as the figure in the long leather coat, with his hat pulled well down, slouches, unrecognized, through a curiously empty Pigalle. Max is flattered by this new interest she shows in his work. But Betty only really sees herself, tapping her way confidently to the stage door of the Moulin Rouge on the day of her first (and only) audition. She feels, with all the pain of true nostalgia, the crispness of the November air in Paris, smells the coffee and the cigarettes, settles her hand more firmly round the handle of her little make-up case. She remembers dancing with aplomb and attack; she remembers how little she thought of her gift, sleeping late in those lazy mornings, buying herself cakes to eat as a treat on her way home, gradually taking less exercise, putting on weight. Now she would no longer dare to try on her practice dress. Now she prefers loose filmy clothes, although her legs are still good.

Max, grunting slightly, switches off the television, stubs out his cigarette, and sits with a cautious hand to his chest. Indigestion or something else frequently finds him in this position. Betty at such moments makes him a cup of tea and reminds him that they have arranged to meet some people downtown for dinner and that when he has drunk his tea he had better take a shower and change. Fortunately Betty is not one of those wives who make a fuss. It would not occur to her to call a doctor, and in this way Max is preserved from an invalid’s regimen, but will continue to lead his intense and sceptical and by this stage very withdrawn existence. He is grateful to his wife for not noticing that anything is amiss, grateful too that she is tough enough to take whatever may come, grateful that their love is not of the overwhelming variety that makes such thoughts unbearable.

When Betty finds Max sitting on the bed, staring yet again at the wedding photographs, she tells him quite
sharply that if he does not stop mooning about in this uncharacteristic way they will soon be late. When he says that he does not feel like going out she reproaches him for being selfish. When, with a sigh, he gets up, having weighed in the balance the very few options open to him, Betty exclaims, ‘And about time too!’ When he slowly topples forward Betty is at her dressing-table, trying on and discarding various pairs of earrings. In that way, when she looks in the mirror, she sees behind her reflection only absence.

In the days of terror that follow Betty refuses to leave Max’s hospital bed. There is no need, they tell her, for her to stay. He will pull through: it was not a serious attack. But she sits there, her eyes wide, her hair uncombed, clutching his hand. The room is full of stupendous flowers and unreal-looking fruit. Mr Markus comes every day and so do many of Betty’s friends, those friends whom she has always rather disliked. She is anxious for them all to leave, and despite their sudden kindness and the disquiet in their eyes she hastens them to the door. She knows, without being told, that Max will recover but that he will be diminished, and she is unwilling for anyone to share this knowledge. For this reason she sits by him, holding his hand, letting him sleep, urging him silently to come back to her, promising, in her mind, that she will be good.

They are a quiet couple now. Max cannot work much, and he has become rather morose. The illness has affected him more slowly but more profoundly. Betty looks after him with great devotion. Thanks to Alfred, to whom Betty wrote as soon as Max came home, they live quite comfortably. Of course, life is very dull. Sometimes Betty wonders if she will ever have anyone to talk to again. In the afternoons, when Max is having his rest, she wanders down to the pool. She stares at the water. ‘Isn’t
it a pretty colour?’ she says forlornly to the man who has come to filter it. ‘I had a hair ribbon just that shade when I was a little girl.’

B
EFORE ENTERING
the bedroom Mimi composes her face. She takes a deep breath, straightens her back, and opens the door. ‘Look, Mama,’ she says. ‘Dolly and Hal have sent these lovely flowers.’ She puts the heavy vase down on a little table where Sofka can see it from the bed. Sofka’s eyes never leave Mimi’s face. My poor girl, she thinks. You are beginning to treat me as if I were your child. Then it must be nearly over with me.

Mimi tiptoes from the room, closing the door quietly behind her. Since that bout of influenza, from which Sofka does not appear to recover, the drawing-room at Bryanston Square is rarely empty. Mimi is there every day, of course, and Lautner joins her devotedly whenever he can. Alfred stays in every evening now. Sometimes Dolly and Hal come round, sometimes Nettie and Will, sometimes all four of them. On occasions like these, smiles grow wistful, conversation more poignant. In the kitchen the girls, Lili and Ursie, are kept busy making relays of tea and coffee, cutting up cheese-cake, honey cake, almond cake. Sometimes the atmosphere is quite animated. They pull the curtains, switch on all the lamps, bustle around with plates and trays, go through to the kitchen to see if the girls are all right, take it in turns to sit with Sofka, come back to report no change, stand up again and produce cigars, offer brandy. This atmosphere
is very persuasive, almost festive. Only Lautner looks uneasy. Eventually he waylays Alfred, who has continued to dislike him. ‘Should you send for Frederick?’ he asks. Alfred dislikes him even more. ‘There is no need,’ he replies. ‘My mother is a little tired, no more than that. As you can see, she is being looked after perfectly well. Are you coming back inside?’ he asks rudely, indicating the door of the drawing-room. ‘Or are you taking Mimi home? She looks dreadful, by the way. Are you sure
she
is being properly looked after?’ And with that he turns his back and prepares to rejoin the others. He will never forgive Lautner for making Mimi pregnant.

Sofka is aware of all this and at the same time profoundly indifferent. She knows that Frederick would not come even if they sent for him, as she senses they might. She knows, but cannot be bothered to tell them, that Frederick, without any of his motives being clear to him, would simply prolong all discussion of such a visit until the reason for it faded from his mind. He is like that; he delays until action becomes irrelevant. Sofka can see him smiting his forehead in amazement, as he used to do when he was a young man. ‘But why didn’t you tell me?’ he will say. ‘I would have come at once.’ Useless to explain to him that the others are so fearful that they might not make their news entirely clear, that Sofka’s illness or weakness or fatigue, whatever it is, has been veiled in so many euphemisms that even if the message were sent Frederick might have some excuse for not finding it terribly urgent. By this time only Sofka is capable of stating, ‘I long for you. Let me see you once before I die.’ And she is too tired even to frame the thought and its consequences. But as she lies there, raised on many pillows in her soft white bed, it is of Frederick and of Betty that she thinks. She sees them quite accurately: bathed in sunshine, in clothes that are not quite serious, exiles, no longer young. They
are her favourites, now as then. For Mimi and for Alfred she has only tenderness, respect, acknowledgment. She knows that they will be there to the end. But, in death as in life, it is the absent one who sees to it that the business will remain unfinished, the farewells unsaid: it is the prodigal who does not return who makes the idea of goodness a mockery. Sofka, indifferent on her pillows, feels a throb of sadness only for those who are not gathered in the adjoining room.

The one whose presence she finds easiest is Lautner, whose devotion is so simple, so absolute, and yet so weightless that there is no need to apologize to him or to reassure him or to thank him. At the very beginning of this illness, she whispered to Lautner, ‘Look after Mimi,’ and since then has said nothing. She saw his eyes fill with tears; she felt his lips brush her hand. Now it is easier not to talk. Strange how Lautner is a better nurse than the nurse herself. When Lautner enters Sofka’s bedroom and sits down by the bed, the nurse retires quietly to the kitchen for a cup of tea. Lautner notices little things that the nurse misses. The fine linen handkerchief has been creased; he will put a fresh one into the hand that lies inert on the lace counterpane. He will sprinkle a little mimosa scent on the lamp, to make the room smell of spring. He will touch Sofka’s lips with glycerine and rosewater, so that they do not become too dry. And although she no longer responds, he will tell her in pleasant detail of the weather outside, describe for her the position of Dorn and Co. on the stock-market, sometimes read her an item from the newspaper: the weather in Nice, in Los Angeles. She likes to see him sitting there, with his newspaper. She likes this reminder of the masculine world, so authoritative, so reassuring, so unlike the tempestuous and secret comings and goings of Alfred. Lautner calls her ‘Mama’, which Alfred despises. Alfred sees it as an attempt to
curry favour. But Sofka and Lautner know that it is the word that Lautner has been longing to use for all his adult life. If it means little to Sofka now, it means all the world to Lautner. It means coming home.